Li'l Color

This is from the autumn... threading a bunch of hot peppers up to dry for the winter. I hung them on a cabinet and they dried nicely.

Bean Thread Salad

I love bean thread salad, and learned to prepare it the way I learned in Thailand. The formula, roughly, is to prepare your bean thread, and mix with a dressing of palm sugar, fish sauce, hot pepper, and lime (sweet, salt, hot, sour). Then add some vegetables, and maybe a protein with a chewy or crunchy texture. In bangkok, that might be shredded pomelo and dried shrimp; here it's fresh cucumber and salmon cracklings. The serving bowl has shredded radish for color.

Served alongside an avocado/cucumber/scallion futo maki I whipped together, sort of a Japanese sub sandwich in my book.

Big Assed Buckwheat Pancake

Buckwheat pancakes for breakfast, with Hodgson's Mill mix. Final seconds in the cast iron, and still steaming on the cutting board, with traditional Gerber precision cutting. Served with real maple syrup and butter.

Better Tuna Melt

Grilled vermont sharp cheese with tomato on whole wheat potato flour bread, browned on cast iron. Served with a bit of sushi tuna likewise browned on slightly hotter cast iron, with a simple splash of tamari on the cutting board. How can you go wrong? I mean, besides by making tuna extinct.

Gimme S'more o' that!

I needed lunch snacks for the boys, and there wasn't a piece of the usual cellophane wrapped junk to be seen. So I made my own.

Graham Cracker
Chocolate Chips
Saran Wrap
mini marshmallows

Lay down a neatly cut half of graham cracker. Cover with marshmallows and chocolate chips. Wrap tightly with saran wrap.

This violates my usual 'microwave only in ceramic' rule, but as the marshmallows expand, the plastic wrap reins them in. They looked perfectly tasty. Pop in lunch box. Bingo.

Put De Lime In De Coconut

A rum drink served in a coconut shell for Paul on his birthday, now an annual tradition.

First, you need to neatly top the coconut with the back of a cleaver (or a file, as I first saw it done). Once you know the trick, they open, as food critic Bret Thorn notes 'like they're supposed to open that way'.

Singe fibers off the shell over the stove, and then fill with the following mixed to taste in a blender:

to taste:
coconut milk
vanilla ice cream
lime juice
palm sugar
aguadiente (a kind of rum, but literally 'fire water')
ice cubes

Now add more rum. How can you go wrong?

Armenian Style Grape Leaves

Inspired by the grape leaves at Eastern Lamejun in Belmont. I grew up eating them, they got more expensive by the minute, and I thought I could never duplicate the blend of spices. I finally wised up and simply googled 'Armenian Grape Leaves', and lo, a recipe that comes out just as good.

Simple enough: saute onion with cumin and allspice, some salt, add a little tomato past and enough water to parcook the rice and give it some bulk. Roll and pack them tightly, weigh down with a plate so they don't unravel, and simmer a good long time so they get soft and expand. Stack in serving container and cover with olive oil and lemon juice.

Pictures here of my rolling station in front of the TV (doesn't even take that long), pan waiting for cooking, and finished grape leaves, nearly perfect with a single exploded unit covering the rest with rice.